Sweep Two

The second sweep to construct the case accounts overlayed the power analytic frame generated from the power theory mash-up introduced at the end of Chapter Three (section 3. 4). The power analytic frame is presented in Figure 12 below.

Figure 12 Power Analytic Frame

This analytic sweep explored the question ‘how does power condition possibilities for students’ and teachers’ action within classroom-based student voice

initiatives? (Research Question 4)

I grouped the descriptive codes generated in Sweep One as faced power categories. This process generated situated dimensions of each face of power within this research. Through this coding process I identified ‘power sharing through identities and positioning’ as Face One power, ‘processes of agenda control’ and ‘mobilisation of resources’ as Face Two power; and ‘school-level influences’ and ‘macro-level discourses’ as Face Three Power. For instance the Discourse category identified initially as a descriptive code (presented in Table 10) became associated with Face Three power in Sweep Two.

Table 11 shows how the dimensions of Face One power within the teachers’ talk were made explicit utilising this coding approach.

Table 11 Face One – Power Sharing

Dimensions Aspects

Face One Power Sharing through identities and

positioning

Co-teaching

Metaphors of participation Hot seat (students driving)

Ball – throwing things back in their hands Destination

Deep vs surface learning Students in teachers’ shoes Step back

Reins – letting go

Identity Students as experts

Students as teachers Teacher as scout Teacher as professional

Teacher/student positioning Teacher going in and out of roles Student voice interrupting teacher as continuous talker

Teacher vulnerable to students

Reciprocal student to teacher feedback on their practice

The second sweep also analysed the classroom video snapshot data for the interplay of power relations in teacher and student interaction utilising discourse analysis tools. The focusing analytical question for this sweep was ‘what job did the teachers’ and students’ discourse do, and how was this achieved?’ I selected discourse analysis tools through ongoing theoretical sampling of the discourse analysis literature during the analysis (Thornberg, 2010).

Table 12 presents the discourse analysis tools I utilised and defines these.

Table 12 Discourse Analysis Tools

Discourse analysis Tool Definition

Authoritative vs dialogic discourse (Hackling, Smith, & Murcia, 2010; Scott et al., 2006),

Interanimating discourses (Seymour & Lehrer, 2006)

Authoritative

Teacher focuses students on one official message.

Dialogic

Meaning is open to influence from student and other points of view.

Interaction between ideas that produces mutual understanding and/or new ideas. Teacher is open to disagreement and other points of view.

Strategies of discursive dominance (van Dijk, 1993)

Topic setting

Interrupting turn taking pattern Use of directives

Interpretive vs evaluative listening (Brodie, 2010)

Evaluative listening – listening to students

in relation to their own goals as teachers.

Interpretive listening – listening to

students in order to understand students’ thinking so that they can support learning.

Teacher presses (Brodie, 2010) Teachers invite students to justify and elaborate their ideas e.g. can you tell me more about that?

Closed and open elicitation (Black, 2007; Mehan, 1979; Myhill, 2011)

Closed elicitation – closed questions asked to produce the correct answer.

Open elicitation - questions asked to encourage divergent responses.

Revoicing (Carroll, 2005) Interactive talk that develops a ‘collaborative floor’

Conversation participants pick up and build on each other’s ideas to jointly construct meanings

Re-formulation (Black, 2007) The teacher ‘re-packages’ a student’s contribution by re-stating it using correct vocabulary

I tabulated and tallied instances of different discourse moves identified within the teacher discourse within events. This enabled me to identify how discourse patterns changed and shifted across the classroom action research.

Table 13 below presents an example of this discourse analysis process from within the Event Six of the Betty case of Chapter Eight.

Table 13 Analysing Discourse Moves across Activities within an Event

Activity Evaluative Interpretive

Discourse move

n Typical example Discourse

move n Typical example 5 Reinforce official message 2 Remember to say what you did well as well, cos you all did great things

paraphrase 2 Okay. So you were happy with that because you didn’t need to use your cue cards too much. Praise 5 Well done. Good

self-reflecting there. Closed elicitation 1 Which colour’s that? Open elicitation 1 Okay. What did you do well? Total comments 8 Total comments 3

6 Praise 1 That’s quite a good idea

paraphrase 2 So you think maybe more options? Clarification 1 Fantastic? Neutral 1 Okay. Acceptance 2 Okay so we

maybe will adapt that for the next one. Observation 1 And no one

rated themselves terrible either, so we didn’t have anyone right on these ends. Total Comments 2 Total comments 6

This tabulation approach enabled the identification of a shift in Betty’s discourse over Event Six from evaluative listening (Brodie, 2010) associated with

authoritative discourse (Scott et al., 2006) to interpretive listening (Brodie, 2010) associated with dialogic discourse (Scott et al., 2006; Seymour & Lehrer, 2006).

In Sweep Two I also coded the data within the chronological case accounts to the eight techniques of power introduced in Chapter Three (section 3.1) drawn from the theorising of Foucault (1977) and the research of Gore (1995, 2002). Coding the data to these techniques was consistent with the approach advocated by

Foucault and practised by Gore (2002) but I found that whilst this ‘flat’ (Foucault, 1982) process enabled me to build situated dimensions of these techniques in my research it obscured how these techniques were deployed by teachers and student in their interaction. For this reason, I eventually discarded this approach and in preference, read the case accounts repeatedly using the techniques of power as lenses to think with. In this way I was able to preserve the analytic focus of interaction and explore how the techniques of power were utilised as discursive tools to deploy power by teachers and students within the framework of the three faces of power.

4.11.7.3 NZCER Me and My School student engagement survey

The NZCER Me and My School student engagement survey was administered to participating and comparison class students in October 2010 at the conclusion of Action Cycle Three using the same procedure outlined in Action Cycle One (section 4.11.2).

For three reasons this student engagement data was not utilised as intended in the research and is not reported in the thesis: (1) contamination of the data set in Action Cycle Three – students outside the SRG group wrote SRG on the top of their survey sheet resulting in more SRG survey forms than SRG members; (2) the survey was not fine-grained enough to provide classroom engagement patterns relevant to the teachers and to the focus of the research; and (3) NZCER

aggregated all six class sets of data into one ‘Emily’s School’ report which meant that patterns could not be separated out easily into individual classes. Although I did not incorporate this data in this thesis, given these shortcomings, in the spirit of reciprocity I did produce comparative reports for each teacher from the

beginning and end of the year using excel spreadsheets as I had promised to at the outset of the research.

4.12 Chapter Summary

This chapter has presented the methodology, research design and a description of the enactment of the research. The research was designed to promote joint teacher

and student action through collaborative action research to co-construct responsive and reciprocal pedagogy that aligned with students’ perceptions of effective teaching and engagement for learning. The design utilised visual

research methods to facilitate student consultation in the first instance that fed into teachers’ learning in the second instance and the development of iterative and dialogic class action projects across three cycles of action.

The design foregrounds the socially constructed meanings the research partners made of their experiences through the action research. Applying the power analytic frame to Action Cycle Three data enabled also the examination of how power worked to condition and influence possibilities for student/teacher action. Adopting a case structure to report the data analysis enabled foregrounding of the unique decisions, actions and contextual factors that influenced possibilities for the teachers’ and students’ joint inquiry into what it might take to enact

Chapter Five: Action Cycle One: Teachers’ Perceptions of

Effective Teaching and Student Voice

This chapter presents the perceptions of effective teaching for young adolescent students and student voice held by Betty, Chicken and Lincoln at the outset of Action Cycle One (see Figure 2 in section 4.3.2), before they began to deliberately enact student voice with their students. It also illustrates how the circulating New Zealand student voice and effective teaching for middle years’ discourses are taken up in the classroom practices of the three participating teachers. Taken together the data presented in this chapter provides insights into the teachers’ beliefs, values and practices that comprise the cultural backdrop of the research at the outset of the research. Findings presented in this chapter also address

Research Question One ‘How do teachers of young adolescent students perceive and define effective teaching and student voice in relation to the needs of the age group?’